


893

by Val Mora (valmora)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Drunkenness, M/M, New Years, Tattoos, War Crimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-16
Updated: 2010-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-28 02:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valmora/pseuds/Val%20Mora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>America barges in on Japan's New Year, as he barges into everything else, and Japan is forced to remind him of some unpleasantness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	893

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted [here](http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/10456.html?thread=20963288#t20963288) to fill [this prompt](http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/3274.html?thread=3637194#t3637194) and not kindexed yet.

Japan’s favorite house is not in Tokyo; he likes onsen, and he cannot enter them. At least, not ones open to the public.

This surprises many Nations who meet him, and they assume it is because he is shy, of course. He is small, and lovely, and polite, and cuts a very fine figure in a suit at any meetings. His sunglasses are used against the sun, rather than to shield his identity, and he wears yukata cleanly and well. But his banning is not because of shyness.

It is because beneath his skin he wears color and shine and the swirl of waves and dragon-scales and tiger-stripes, inked permanence, one arm a row of black bands halfway to his elbow and growing. It is easy to commit crimes, less pleasant to be caught for them. The largest and most recent one grows ever larger with the passing years, as records are refound and his own people become more aware of what their ancestors did.

He prefers the koi swimming up his left breast, towards his shoulder, its scales white-blue but for the orange on its back, a bright circle. He sometimes imagines he can feel the heat of the sun rising there when he presses his hand over his heart, even through black suit jackets and white dress shirts.

 

He invites America to visit over the New Year, at the house in the country. America avails himself of the private spring, the kitchen, everything but Japan’s body. He wanders with holey socks through the house, respecting few barriers, opening any doors that please him. He always does this, a large over-friendly dog who must always investigate new territory.

It is no surprise, of course, that America and Pochi get along so well.

Of course all of the Prefectures visit, bringing _omiyage_ , and Tokyo takes a break from working to stop by with bananas and to have a conversation with Kyoto that goes well, Japan thinks, before going to get stinking drunk with Sapporo and Osaka. They invite America, who agrees; Japan manages to extricate himself by being in the middle of a very earnestly polite defense of America’s presence to Kagoshima, who has of course misconstrued things, being Satsuma’s son.

Not that Japan would deny America, because they are close, but he is well aware of what it would look like to other Nations, and that is part of what holds him. The other part is that America is just as good at breaking nations as he is as building them. Better, even. He broke Japan once, with no little help, and built him up again. He is afraid that if America were to touch him in desire, he would only feel America tending his wounds.

 

Osaka, Sapporo, Tokyo, and America return absolutely piss-drunk. Osaka trips over his own feet on the stairs up to the guest rooms and falls asleep lying on them; Japan merely steps around him, and around Tokyo, who has curled up on the landing next to the closet. And around Sapporo, who is drooling onto the tatami of the _washitsu_ a few meters from the stairs. Japan rolls him onto the wood floor. They all smell of beer, and he wonders vaguely how they got home; it is a half-hour walk to the nearest grocer’s. He suspects they took Sapporo’s car and will have to go fetch it in the morning.

He finds America lolling red-cheeked on the stairs out to the garden, still awake. He looks up at Japan and grins movie-star wide.

“Yo,” he says. Japan nods faintly and sits down beside him. “What’d you do while we were out?”

“I cleaned the kitchen and organized the food _omiyage_. Would you care for an apple?”

“Nah, thanks.”

A silence, as they listen to water flowing. The sōzu tips a few times.

“D’you mind if I go in the hot spring?” America asks.

“It is all right,” Japan says. He does mind, but America is a guest, and he will be gone soon enough. “Please enjoy yourself.”

He’s halfway to standing when America catches the hem of his yukata sleeve and holds fast, stopping him.

“I wouldn’t mind some company,” America says.

Japan closes his eyes, opens them again. “It is a bit late –”

“Bullshit. I know the hours you keep. Come on, it’ll relax you. Today’s been really bad for you, I can tell.”

It has been. He will hurt tomorrow if he does not. But America has never seen the full extent of his tattoos – they do not extend all the way down his chest, nor all the way to his elbows, nor past his waist. America changing the bandages on his leg did not reveal them, and Japan had used his own aides to help him bathe and dress, since America would have been useless for either task.

“It would,” Japan says. “If you would like to wash first, you may go ahead.”

“Thanks.” America bounces up off the stairs and strides off towards the bathing room. Japan waits nearly a half an hour before America, clad in a towel, skin flushed red, strides past him, hops into some geta, and clatters down the path to the onsen. Japan rises, his muscles aching, and goes to bathe.

There will be no way around his own nakedness or the partial suit beneath that. He can only hope that America will not notice, from having removed Texas for the moment and the steam, or that America will be polite enough to pretend not to notice.

The latter is laughable, the former possible.

 

 

Japan is excellent at technology, cloth, design, cute, politeness, and bureaucracy. He is not, however, lucky. The moment Japan steps to the edge of the onsen, America pops his head above water, squints up at him, and starts gaping.

“Didn’t that _hurt_?” America asks.

“Yes,” Japan says, slipping into the water. There is no point in trying to hide it anymore; America will inevitably force the issue, so it is best to let him see, and then ask for his silence.

“Jesus,” America says. “Is that a geisha?”

“Yes.”

“What’s that tiger with her doing?”

“Please do not ask.”

“And the dragon?”

“I believe he is roaring.”

“You don’t _know_?”

Japan swallows. “They are disgusting. I do not spend time examining them.”

He feels America’s shock as a sudden stiff energy at his side.

“Why?” America breathes.

“…I am not marked because I am a good citizen,” Japan replies, no little bitter. “These are yakuza tattoos, and they remain because I cannot rid myself of them. Besides, you are looking at the wrong shoulder.” He turns, watches America’s eyes widen at the stripes of black ink, layers upon layers. “For crimes committed.” He reaches below the water and grabs America’s hand, lays his palm across the swath of the Fifteen-Year War. It is wider even than America’s hand. Leans forward, rising onto his toes to breathe in America’s ear, “The Bataan Death March is three centimeters from the bottom.”

He feels America shiver even in the heat of the water.

“I,” America says, and his eyes are wide, his cheeks wet. Japan isn’t sure if it’s steam or tears, and he can feel something ugly, black and red and bright, rising from his belly. The same feeling he gets when he spends too much time with Osaka during a gang conflict.

“Excuse me,” he says, and stands, rising from the water. Turns – he can feel America’s gaze sweeping down his back, the swirl of a fan’s ribs over his shoulderblade fading into blank skin, as he covers up again. Reenters the house.

 

America is sitting on the floor in front of Japan’s bedroom door when he returns.

“You don’t have to torture yourself,” America says. “You can just apologize. I’ve – okay, I’ve mostly forgiven you.”

Japan looks up, at the ceiling and its blank white space, for a moment. “You forget quickly and well,” he says, and steps over America’s knee to enter his own bedroom alone.


End file.
